


The Cure is Worse than the Disease

by dev_chieftain



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dev_chieftain/pseuds/dev_chieftain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A complete AU: Barnaby Brooks Jr., a friendly young rookie Hero, turns out to have a few secrets once Kotetsu really gets to know him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fanwork exchange on Tiger and Bunny comm @ LJ. Prompt:
> 
> Instead of holding the painful emotional baggage he does, Barnaby is like his episode 14+ self from the beginning of his partnership with Kotetsu, and the results. Would like if it had Barnaby/Kotetsu/Barnaby vibes, if not the pairing outright.

"You don't like me very much," Barnaby said, "do you, Wild Tiger?"

He sounded oddly sad about it, which didn't make a particular amount of sense to Kotetsu, but still got through his own personal aura of _really ticked off with life_ enough to make him actually, really look at the kid for the first time since they'd officially met the week before. They'd been apples and oranges from the moment they'd met; Barnaby, who was shy and sweet and always the first to tell everyone how wonderful Kotetsu or their sponsors were, and Kotetsu, who was still reeling from being thrown on the mercies of a new company with a new boss who, unlike Ben, was pretty much never going to have Kotetsu over for pizza and beer after a bad day at work; Barnaby, who seemed stunned when people wanted to be near him and liked to show off for the camera, and Kotetsu who dressed according to his own personal sense of what looked sharp and damn the consequences; Barnaby, who was barely out of college, and Kotetsu with a kid whose life he owed to his partner.

It was the last part that made him look up, more than Barnaby's miserable tone, and wonder why he had such a grudge against this poor, friendly kid, who was nervous in small gatherings at best, and practically shaking, now. Letting Agnes boss him around into taking Barnaby to this damn restaurant had been a terrible idea. There was a huge crowd and everyone knew who they were- or well, who Barnaby was. If he'd been thinking, instead of wallowing in feelings of inadequacy and frustration with his own inability to get over his problems and deal, he might've considered the fact that Barnaby, who had done nothing but try to help him out, wasn't his enemy at all, here. Even if he _had_ emasculated Wild Tiger during the season finale by catching him like a princess in a fairy tale.

The silence stretched too long and Barnaby glanced away, whatever courage had prompted him to ask about Kotetsu's evident contempt lost in the face of Kotetsu's resultant incredulous stare. Kotetsu stammered, suddenly contrite for his own foul temper in a way he hadn't been for years. Ben would have been shocked. "Ah- well, it's not really your fault, you know? I-"

Glancing at the cameras, Kotetsu hated himself for not finding a way to chase Agnes and the camera-men off so he could actually be a bit more honest with his so-called partner than he liked being on film. As it was, he tried to suppress his lingering frustration with their wasted evening enough to be kinder than he had been from the start.

"-I'm just, you know, still getting used to working with a partner. It's not normal in this business! Just a matter of getting adjusted." In a way, he felt like he was giving the tired old 'it's not you, it's me!' speech, but fundamentally, it was true. What could he really say? _I'm sorry, Barnaby. I've been feeling down on my luck so I took it out on you?_

Well-- yeah. He probably ought to say that. But-- "Oh," Barnaby said self-deprecatingly, fiddling with his wineglass and smiling another of those beatific smiles he was already becoming famous for. "I understand. It's not easy learning to deal with new people in your life, is it?"

Something about it, something about the way Barnaby acted as if Kotetsu was absolutely blameless, left him puzzled and horrendously guilty. Maybe Lloyds had been right, after all. If Kotetsu was the more experienced one, then he ought to be the one setting the example. He pushed his hat back from his eyes, and tried to pretend there wasn't a camera on them. "Maybe not, but it's worth the effort!"

Barnaby's startled expression gave way to yet another of his too-friendly-to-be-real smiles as he tossed his hair and glanced out the window at the city below. "If you say so."

Kotetsu propped his elbow on the table, cheek pressed against his hand and sighed. So much for getting used to Barnaby Brooks Junior enough to befriend him. Every time Kotetsu wanted to think he was even remotely normal, he went acting like he thought he was a movie star. He might be pretty enough to be one, but that didn't exactly make Kotetsu like him more, either. "Don't you _ever_ get tired of doing that?"

Barnaby frowned, evidently puzzled. "Doing what?"

One of the waitresses, who evidently had been summoned forth from the crowd of onlookers by the hair-flip the way fish are attracted to bait, excitedly stepped closer not to take their order but to ask Barnaby, "May I shake your hand?"

Barnaby looked surprised, and then smiled shyly, offering his hand with a nervous laugh. "It's a pleasure to meet you, miss...?"

"Filia!" she caroled excitedly, squeezing his hand and making a bit of a scene before Barnaby was able to safely extricate himself. Luckily, Filia evidently didn't care one bit that she'd make her current idol physically uncomfortable, and rushed back to her friends to squeal excitedly about her luck. Unluckily, she still hadn't taken their order, which meant they had no refills, no food, and nothing to talk about.

Kotetsu snorted, noting the embarrassed blush coloring Barnaby's cheeks. "Stuff like that. Why do you do it?"

"Well, it's a part of our job, isn't it?" Wearing a stunning smile, Barnaby turned his attention back to Kotetsu as if they'd never been interrupted. If he hadn't been looking for it, Kotetsu reflected he might not even have noticed the uncertainty that seemed to linger in Barnaby's tone, in the way he kept his eyes directed out the window, instead of meeting Kotetsu's stare. "In any case, I have a question for you, sir."

Well, whatever. "What's this? Why're you calling me sir, all of a sudden?"

"Isn't it proper?" Barnaby answered, one eyebrow raised as if he wasn't the one asking a silly question. Rolling his eyes, Kotetsu met his gaze evenly, doing nothing to conceal his distaste for the idea of being called 'sir' by anyone. Unfazed, Barnaby gestured out of the window. "I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about the monuments of the city, since we were visiting this place to see the Mister Legend statue downstairs, after all."

"Eh?" Kotetsu blinked, glancing out the window and noting them all in no small amount of surprise. "I guess I don't really know much about them. A lot of our sponsors have monuments. Whoever designed the city was really into statues. Some idiot who thought he was in ancient Greece or something. _None_ of them are as cool as the Mister Legend statue."

Even as Agnes snarled, "Be serious!" Kotetsu was amused to see Barnaby hiding a smile behind his hand. Well. At least the kid had a sense of humor, right? That was something. Enough, even, to justify half an apology. He resigned himself to the fact that nothing he did was likely to chase away Agnes's agitated frown, and tried anyway.

"Like I said, I don't know about that." Agnes crossed her arms over her chest, but her retort was drowned out by the claxon of a security alarm.

 _Attention, all visitors. An alarm has been set off inside the building. Please follow the instructions of the staff immediately. Repeat:..._

Trying not to look too relieved that their impromptu evening had been interrupted, Kotetsu leapt to his feet. Beside him, Barnaby did the same, and they rushed to meet an approaching security guard, Kotetsu calling "What's wrong? Is there a fire?"

The guard had a lanky look to him, and a purse-lipped expression that said he was new to his job and didn't like being in this situation so early in the post. His unwillingness to tell them melted away when Agnes spoke up on their part, informing him of their status as Heroes; but when he leaned in to whisper the truth, Kotetsu found himself suddenly sympathizing with the man's distaste utterly.

"Well, actually, there's been a bomb threat issued to the building," he warned them in quiet tones.

"Where is it?" Barnaby hissed, while Kotetsu glanced around the room, doing a quick count. At least a hundred patrons on this floor alone, and the restaurant was by no means the only place with customers, even in the evening. No guarantee that everyone would be able to leave the building in time, presuming they even know how much time they had. Tuning the conversation out, he tried to think of any location at all that had leapt out at him as viable for planting a bomb throughout their trip to the building. There really hadn't been anything, except--

Of course. An elevator, malfunctioning on the first day a building was open? Wasn't that incredibly suspicious, given that performance testing would have been concluded at least a week before, based on Stern Bild regulation? "Sorry," he said, catching Barnaby's eye and hoping the kid would understand how important it was to handle the evacuation with the security guard while Kotetsu chased down his hunch. After all, if he was wrong, they'd be doing nobody any good. "Take care of things here!"

Agnes's angry voice followed him out of the restaurant, and he called back to her a promise he hoped he'd be able to keep to return as quickly as possible. If the elevator was the location of the bomb-- no, if the bomb was even real. Suppose it wasn't? Or suppose there was a fake bomb in the elevator or--

He cast those thoughts aside, dodging down to the call button and slamming it furiously until the elevator arrived, relieved to get the one he'd meant to summon and not one of its counterparts up the hall of them. The elevator car itself seemed innocent enough, but if the mechanic they'd seen had been oiling the cables, that meant he'd been up top.

Not for the first time in his life, Kotetsu was torn between being glad he'd guessed right and horrified. Seventeen minutes wasn't nearly enough time to call in an actual bomb squad, and they'd be cutting their evacuation pretty close as it was. With a grumble for the trouble of shuffling back out of the elevator car, he met Barnaby back at the stairwell, haggled his way through an argument with Agnes, and returned with partner in tow and a camera in his hands for his troubles.

"Do you know how to run that?" Barnaby asked as he crawled up into the emergency hatch, reaching down to take the camera so Kotetsu could follow.

"Of course I know!"

"Ah, I see. You just looked a bit like you weren't too happy with it."

"I'm not, but I'll do it if it means that idiot will get herself someplace safe."

Barnaby turned away from him, eyeing the bomb with an intensity that made Kotetsu mildly uncomfortable. "Anyway," Barnaby murmured under his breath, sounding less like he was paying attention to Kotetsu's answer and more like he was concentrating on what he was doing. "How did you even know this was here?"

"I thought it didn't make sense for the elevator to malfunction when the building's so new," Kotetsu hedged, trying to see over Barnaby's shoulder as Barnaby produced a strange tool from one pocket and began to unscrew the casing covering the bomb. Giving it up as hopeless, he shifted, laying down on the roof of the elevator car beside Barnaby to get a better shot of the serious expression on his face.

Barnaby raised an eyebrow, lightening up enough to smile despite the danger of their situation. "That's all it took?"

"Well, the guy we ran into was suspicious too, his clothes were way too clean to be real work clothes."

Making a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort of disbelief, Barnaby shook his head and turned back to the bomb, carefully removing the casing. "Well, not bad. Thanks to you, we might actually be able to keep this building in one piece."

"You think you can actually disarm that?" Kotetsu asked, resettling himself again. "In ten minutes?"

For a moment, there was that flicker of uncertainty again, and Barnaby shrugged as nonchalantly as someone in their admittedly unnerving situation was likely to be capable of doing. "If I don't we could always carry it out of the building. No way to tell if moving it would set it off yet, though. But," and he smiled outright, his attention clearly on the camera and not the numbers counting down to zero behind him. "Heroes have to be prepared for anything, right?"

"For my sake, don't wink," Kotetsu growled.

Seemingly surprised to have been caught showing off, Barnaby got back to work, hurriedly snipping away at wires of matching color sets. Between his thin-lipped determination and the sweat standing out on his brow, Kotetsu could safely guess Barnaby was no calmer about the idea of testing how much of an explosion his hundred power could withstand than Kotetsu himself. When they'd been quiet for a few moments, Barnaby asked a little more softly, "You know, if you can't help me with this, wouldn't it be better for you to evacuate too?"

His voice didn't quite tremble, but Kotetsu could see the way Barnaby's hands shook at the idea of facing this situation completely alone and, to be honest, was a little offended anyone could think him so heartless. "Don't be stupid. I'm not going to leave you here, I'm your partner."

The slight tremor in Barnaby's hands didn't go away, but his eyes warmed and he laughed softly. He sounded almost incredulous. Not unhappy. Definitely confused. "Thinking like that'll get you killed someday, old man."

"Hey! Who's old?" Kotetsu resisted the urge to rap Barnaby on the head with the camera and settled for gesticulating wildly instead to try to do something with his excess energy. Without looking up, Barnaby added wryly,

"Keep your camera steady, too, if you're not going to do anything else."

Narrowly suppressing his desire to rise to the bait, Kotetsu tried to keep still. Instead, he counted down the seconds, trying to think of anything other than his life flashing before his eyes while he let Barnaby work in tense silence. He'd been through bomb scares in the past, but they'd always had better time than this before. The chance to get a Hero with any technical know-how; an area with cell phone reception good enough to let them call up the police to walk them through it or, better yet, a bomb squad capable of defusing the problem without the help of any Heroes, leaving Kotetsu free to evacuate the endangered civilians in the area and be on hand for damage control in case it all went to hell.

This was considerably less safe, and they were only losing time. When the clock slipped down to a mere two minutes left, he started to feel edgy. "Hey."

Barnaby did not answer, sweat running down his face and eyes locked on the wires he was still clipping, carefully removing the colored wires in a sequence Kotetsu could not have guessed on the luckiest day of his life.

"Hey! We won't have time to evacuate now; are you close to done, or do we need a plan B?" He tried to keep still, but lying down no longer seemed relaxing. Kotetsu sat up, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

"I've got most of it," Barnaby sighed, leaning back on his heels and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. Before Kotetsu could get too comfortable with relief that they were finally safe, Barnaby went on. "But that's only the conductor. There's still the trap; if I cut the right wire, we're safe. If I cut the one connected to the detonator..."

Snarling, Kotetsu finished for him in mild disgust. "We blow up, right? So which is it?" He decided to reserve his annoyance with Barnaby's taste for the dramatic delivery until after they were finished with the whole debacle. But oh, there would be words--

"That's the trouble."

"You don't _know?_ " Kotetsu tried not to snap the camera in two, but it was a near thing. He hadn't been so nervous in years, and he wasn't sure if he blamed Barnaby for being the person he had thought he could rely on to solve this situation for him or himself for not spending the last twelve minutes or so nitpicking possible alternative solutions so they wouldn't have to come up with something on the spot.

Barnaby was glowering at him with real ire, for once, and Kotetsu was a little surprised to realize the kid was capable of anything but those damn fake smiles and self-important dramatic glances. "If I did, don't you think I would have cut it already?"

"We don't have time for this!" Honestly, they didn't, and Kotetsu got to his feet, not sure if he wanted to run or just needed the space and not giving it too much thought. "Just pick one-- cut the top!"

Eyes narrowing, Barnaby stubbornly lowered his hands. "Why?"

"Bottom, then!"

"Don't just guess wildly," Barnaby sighed, exasperated; what had previously been almost unnoticeable was now a full-blown, overwhelming sort of tremor that doubtless would make it almost impossible to cut whichever wire he ended up picking anyway. They had thirty seconds, they were both sweating, and neither of them was getting any calmer, though Barnaby was definitely the one with a cooler head, still kneeling there complacently like he could take a bomb to the face, no problem.

It kind of pissed Kotetsu off, really. "My wild guess got us this far!"

"I'm not eager to die!"

Kotetsu wanted to ask if Barnaby was sure, just sitting there like a lamb at sacrifice, but there was no time for whining if he didn't want to die with a meaningless quip on his lips. If only they could get the bomb out of the building without worrying about setting it off in the process, or blowing up all the people standing around on the ground floor outside, or--

 _Plan B._ Kotetsu strangled his own train of thought to a halt before he could pass the idea over, and lunged into action with a gleam of blue and a shout to Barnaby to coordinate. There were several hundred thousand factors Kotetsu knew he'd failed to calculate, and if Tomoe'd still been around to create something to represent it for anecdotal retellings, Plan B would have been modeled as a smudged, inky map drawn on a used cocktail napkin. He didn't dare let himself worry about it. Ten seconds. Nine.

Kotetsu stopped thinking entirely. He felt more a passenger, watching in wonder as he blasted through the roof and dropped safely back down the shaft to the elevator car, than he did the engine of their salvation. They didn't need words, but that was just as well, since there wasn't time. Catching the camera as Barnaby surged past him, kicking the bomb straight into the sky, Kotetsu swung his gaze up and watched in awe as the explosion filled the world around him for a moment, its hot breath steaming straight down the shaft and knocking them both flat on their asses.

For a moment, Kotetsu was deaf, stunned, and incredulous. Sirens filtered back into his world and he couldn't help a weak chuckle of surprise when he realized that, despite it all, they were still alive. He clicked the 'upload' button to send Agnes her precious footage and had to pry the camera out of his own shaking hand to set it aside, a wave of stage fright hitting now that the danger was passed and the adrenaline rush was catching up to him. Barnaby lay motionless beside him, staring up at the flash and glimmer of falling, molten debris high above, still bathed in the soft blue glow of his NEXT power.

Kotetsu realized, with a wry smile, that they were covered in soot, and Barnaby's glasses were smudged with sweat and dirt, rendering him nearly blind. They looked like a pair of transients for all their trouble.

"We're awful, aren't we?" He sighed, sitting up and propping his back against the wall of the elevator shaft. "Useless until danger actually pops up."

Barnaby lifted one hand, quietly pulled off his glasses, and licked his lips. "Speak for yourself," he muttered, sounding almost petulant.

Chuckling, Kotetsu fanned himself with his hat, tugging at the collar of his shirt to try to cool down. "What you said earlier," he began, unsure of how exactly to put it. He settled for offering Barnaby his hand. "I'm sorry. I think I wasn't even trying to get to know you before. But- if we're gonna be partners- I want to, starting now. Okay?"

Staring at the offered hand without seeming to understand why Kotetsu was doing so, Barnaby blinked a little too rapidly. Rather than answer immediately, Barnaby squinted at his glasses, producing a scruffy blue cloth from one pocket to wipe them clean and resettle them over the bridge of his nose. He frowned at the hand hovering near him, reluctantly lifting his own to clasp it. "Okay," he said, hesitantly.

"We can pretend we met just now," Kotetsu promised, grinning toothily. "Howdy; I'm Kotetsu Kaburagi."

And to his surprise, Barnaby gave him this small smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle just so, and squeezed Kotetsu's hand. "Barnaby. Glad to be working with you."


	2. Chapter 2

Kotetsu was running for his life.

Yes, he could use his NEXT power, but based on the blue flames this mechanical monstrosity was packing, he couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t be able to match his speed and follow him, too. Assuming that the giant robot had been made to copy NEXT power, and it was using fire-controlling NEXT like Nathan as its base, it was already plenty dangerous. He didn’t want to find out if the damn thing could scan and copy new powers when exposed to them, especially not while he was going up against it one on one.

So Kotetsu ran, sidling behind the first wall he could find and calling Saito as quickly as he dared. And again. And again, but each time to a single ring and a dial-tone. “Mister Saito!” he shouted in relief when, on his fifth attempt, a call popped up, but a familiar voice countered that.

“No, it’s me.” Maybe it was weird that Kotetsu hadn’t even thought about trying to call his partner first. He reasoned that Barnaby might have been asleep and didn’t have their hero suits hanging around in his apartment, anyway, most likely. Barnaby had spent the better part of the day at a photo-shoot, while Kotetsu had spent the better part of his day letting Fire Emblem test the limits of his new hero suit and then, in a turn of events that had left him absolutely without any appetite whatsoever, being unable to save unprotected men from being set aflame by a third party. With any luck, Barnaby was not particularly tired after his day posing for the cameras, because Kotetsu was not in any shape to be handling this alone and he was completely willing to admit that now that they were talking.

“Bunny!”

Barnaby’s tinny voice continued in a mildly accusatory tone, “Don’t ‘Bunny’ me. Have you been playing around with my phone?” The sound of his partner’s voice was barely audible over the crunching of the mechanical suit as it tore through park benches and asphalt. A barrage of gunfire answered the question before Kotetsu could try and he winced, ducking lower behind the small cover he’d found. His knees were starting to ache from running so much and he doubted he’d be catching his breath anytime soon. “I’m surprised you didn’t call me earlier to bring it to my attention.”

“No- I- Bunny, I need your help!” The wall crumbled behind him under a fresh assault, shards of brick and dust raining down on his head, and Kotetsu set off running again with a yelp as one stray bullet grazed his arm. He ignored the burning sting of it, dashing as fast as he could up the street in the hope that the machine wouldn’t keep pace with him too easily. Whoever this guy was, he seemed to be playing around for the moment. Maybe he just wanted to make Kotetsu sweat a little. Still, he couldn’t imagine why someone had randomly decided to attack him in the middle of the night in a deserted park. If the guy had been a mugger, that’d be one thing, but this was so much stranger. It was like this guy had known he’d find Wild Tiger if he waited long enough, or had followed Kotetsu all the way here. Why? What purpose could that possibly serve? Kotetsu was desperately trying to think, in the background as he leapt over bushes and charged down the road, who he could _possibly_ consider as an enemy of Wild Tiger. Certainly he’d never met a criminal this tenacious. It didn’t add up at all.

“Is this like that weird birthday event you were trying to set up?” Barnaby asked, now sounding slightly amused, maybe even touched. Before Kotetsu could cut him off, a blast of fire seared the air behind him and he tumbled to the side, crouching so low his knees creaked in protest. His back felt too hot and he didn’t dare pause to glance back at the thing chasing him, lunging back into the street to keep it from torching the park in its efforts to get to him. There was no telling how many people were in the park, but the road was mostly clear. Barnaby, unfazed and unaware, was still going on. “Most people would have just invited me out for drinks if they wanted to socialize, old man. Do you even know how to act like a normal person?”

Gasping for breath and rolling his eyes, Kotetsu interrupted the stream of banter with a desperate growl. “ _Bunny!_ Some guy just started attacking me in the park on the way home I don’t have my suit and if he sets me on fire I’m probably gonna die so _please shut up and come help me!_ ”

A stunned second of silence on the other end of the line, and then the sound of Barnaby’s door slamming shut, the soft sound of Barnaby panting as he ran down the hall, sounding much more reserved and in-control than Kotetsu felt. Damn that kid, making him feel old. “Where are you? What park?” Barnaby asked in a rush, and Kotetsu told him, ducking under a fresh wave of blue fire and catching sight of a familiar red car cruising along ahead of him. His heart leapt to his throat. Nathan! Maybe Nathan could repel this guy’s fire, or-- “Should I call Saito?”

“Yes!” Kotetsu shouted, waving frantically to try to get Nathan’s attention, torn between wanting Barnaby on the scene immediately and wanting the help that he could actually see right in front of him. “Hurry! Meet us here as soon as you can!”

“Us?” Barnaby’s voice dropped lower, worry turning to determination. “Are you with civilians?”

“No, Fire Emblem. Hey! Hey slow down! Stop!” There was an exasperated sigh, and a mutter of ‘don’t die, you idiot’, and the call ended with a soft beep. Kotetsu paid it no heed: so long as Barnaby was on his way, Kotetsu didn’t care if they stayed on the phone for the duration. For the moment his primary goal was trying to get through to Nathan.

Easier said than done; as he drew up beside the car, he was too out of breath to properly explain himself until after Nathan had misunderstood his reaction as a reconsideration of their earlier conversation.

“That’s not it,” he moaned, trying to ignore the stitch in his side and pointing wildly behind them. “Look--!”

A renewed machine-gun barrage was the counterpoint to his tune, and Kotetsu leapt to the front of the car before he could find himself suddenly missing several little pieces of himself. Nathan spilled from his car as well, scuttling to the front and demanding to know what was going on. Still, even as they argued about who would save who, Kotetsu was trying to figure out why he’d even been attacked in the first place. Who was their assailant? Why had he come out after Kotetsu now? Could it be a friend of the criminal who’d died before his eyes today—a thug who thought that the Heroes should have tried harder to protect a man who didn’t deserve to die?

Kotetsu couldn’t think of anything else. It felt like everything fell still and quiet.

Startled, he jerked up from where he’d been crouching, glancing around the side of the car. It _was_ silent; the hail of bullets had stopped. “Is it safe?” he wondered wearily, running out into the open again and charging towards the machine to try to tackle it head on.

A gout of blue flame answered, nearly searing his face off in the second it took him to spin on his heel and run back Nathan’s way, screaming to warn his companion of the danger in case Nathan was not watching. Several things happened at once: Nathan threw a blast of fire to meet the machine’s, Kotetsu caught hold of him and dragged him struggling out of the way of the blast, and Barnaby arrived in a flash of pink and green, Saito and the Apollon media van not far behind him.

The mechanical suit started to draw back, but Kotetsu lunged up after it, Nathan blasting its path of retreat with cover fire to keep it at bay. They met mid-air, Barnaby kicking one of the suit’s arms free while Kotetsu landed atop it, sinking his fingers into stubborn metal and ripping it asunder with one great heave that left his shoulders screaming in complaint. Peering down to see their culprit, Kotetsu frowned, trying to remember the face. In the process, he momentarily forgot that they had not yet gotten an official surrender from the man.

Nathan caroled, “Do you think he’s the one who committed the murders, earlier? With that barbaric weapon of his?” and Barnaby, pushing his glasses up his nose, crossed his arms over his chest.

“What are you doing with a robot of this design?” He asked darkly, nudging the gun-bearing arm he’d dislodged with one booted toe. “This is...”

Not waiting for Barnaby to continue, the man cast Kotetsu off and threw a blinding charge straight into Kotetsu’s stomach, leaving Kotetsu with one hell of a bruise and all three of them blind for long enough to let the machine scramble away unhindered. The flare of light and the hot flash over his guts was enough to make Kotetsu sincerely glad he’d still had some of his power left, but the impact with the ground was sharp enough to make him regret that he’d been caught off-guard at all. Groaning in frustration, he rolled to his side and clambered to his feet, blinking dazzled spots out of his eyes and holding his head.

When his vision cleared, Nathan was standing nearby doing much the same. Barnaby, who seemed to have recovered more quickly, was looking about in every direction anxiously, but seemed unable to figure out where their culprit had disappeared to. Agitated—almost angry, which struck Kotetsu as particularly strange—he stalked back to the Apollon van without a word to either of them, ignoring both Kotetsu and Nathan’s attempts to thank him for showing up.

“How rude,” Nathan sighed, offering Kotetsu a hand to help steady him until his vision cleared the rest of the way as they made their way to the van as well. “Not at all like him. Do you think he was asleep when you called?”

Shrugging, Kotetsu stepped inside the van. “I didn’t call him. It’s probably got more to do with whatever he was asking when the guy left.”

“That’s true!” Curiosity piqued, Nathan turned his attentions back to Barnaby as soon as they were inside the van. Which, as far as Kotetsu was concerned, was just as well. He wasn’t up to anything but finding the nearest seat, which happened to be next to Saito, and collapsing into it with a weary sigh. He kept an ear to the conversation. “What were you talking about, Handsome? Did you recognize those robotic designs?”

“More than recognized,” Barnaby sighed, pacing anxiously back and forth as he puzzled over some secret he seemed to have forgotten to share with the two of them. “My parents were heavily involved in that field. Their designs were integral to the technical revolution in the fifties. The magnetic trains, the new plate system used for the upper level—“

Tapping his lower lip with one perfectly manicured nail, Nathan added, “I’d read about some of their work with nanometal, but I didn’t know they’d influenced so many of the modern designs. They were very important people at that time.” He smiled sadly. “I guess that explains how they could have made enemies in the industry.”

Wresting his attention away from Barnaby, Kotetsu doffed his cap, scratching his head and discovering to his great relief that, though warm, he didn’t appear to have lost any hair to the fire he’d been running from. Small miracles. “Enemies?”

“It’s not important,” Barnaby interjected hastily, clenching his hands into fists. “The important thing is, their designs let us build the Hero suits at all. I _know_ they also had prototypes of mechanical working suits like what we just saw.”

“I’m sensing a conciliatory statement, here,” Nathan murmured, leaning into a corner and watching Barnaby’s agitated pacing with as much concern as Kotetsu was himself. Of the four of them, only Saito seemed engrossed in something else, as he played with his cell-phone and sat patiently on the couch. Trying to encourage Barnaby, Nathan supplied the rest for him. “They had prototypes, that is to say, ‘but’--?”

“But they would never have designed any with weapons!” Stopping dead where he stood, Barnaby wavered, as if shouting at the top of his lungs had taken most of his energy. He lifted a hand to the wall to catch himself, seeming dizzy. “...I’m sorry. I just- the idea of someone stealing that kind of blueprint, or manufacturing those suits with weaponry added to the design-“ he sighed, combing a hand uneasily through his hair, scratching at the back of his neck. “I know that’s not what they’d have wanted. They were working on those suits to help with civil service and engineering. They abhorred violence and warfare.”

Trading a concerned look with Nathan, Kotetsu spoke up, trying to sound reassuring. “It’s not like anyone would think that, just from seeing it. It’s obvious your parents wouldn’t have condoned that sort of thing, right?”

“The idea of letting something meant to help people be used to harm them instead is unforgivable!” Sinking his fist into the wall of the van so hard the whole shell shuddered, Barnaby grit his teeth, breath coming faster. He shook his head sharply, as if denying the very possibility, even after seeing it for himself. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself into some semblance of calm, his voice grown sad and tired. “It’s a perversion of something I care about. I can’t see that and just...feel _nothing_.”

To that, Kotetsu could only offer meager comfort. He tried anyway, almost sorry Barnaby had showed up in time to see what the mechanical suit looked like. A few seconds later and he might not have even seen it. But no, they had to find this person. The suit alone was already too dangerous to leave running amok through the city, not to mention that its pilot seemed to have no regard for public safety at all. The park and several parked cars were riddled with the bullet holes to prove it. “He’s not gonna be able to hide forever. And he came after me; I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up again. Just you wait, it’ll work out.”

“Will it?” Barnaby answered humorlessly.

Unsure how to respond to that, Kotetsu opened his mouth in helpless silence, and was grateful when Nathan spoke up. “Maybe we can figure out his affiliations if we can match his description, then.” Coaxing Barnaby away from the wall, Nathan flipped open his personal phone, calling up a three-dimensional interface screen and connecting to Stern Bild’s citywide wireless network. “Did either of you recognize him, maybe? I’d never seen him before, that’s for sure.”

Sitting politely down on Saito’s other side, Barnaby shook his head, taking off his glasses to clean them. “I’m not very good with that sort of thing,” he said, much quieter now that he seemed to have found some balance of calm. “It can be pointless to try to remember a face anyway, if it’s been too long.” It was almost distressing, hearing him sound so defeated. Still, Kotetsu reasoned that it was better than the alternative. Seeing Barnaby angry was unsettling in a way he didn’t care to rediscover if he could help it.

Scowling, Kotetsu crossed his legs at the knee and his arms over his chest, sitting back into the couch more heavily. “I thought he seemed familiar, but I haven’t got the faintest when I’d have seen him before.”

“You were upside-down,” Nathan pointed out coyly. “Who knows if you’re even really recognizing him, Tiger.”

“Don’t give me that! I know what I saw, I just can’t remember where.” Trying to stir his memory, Kotetsu nursed his irritation with quiet frustration at Nathan’s casual insults. They weren’t personal, and he knew it, but having his credibility undermined tended to rub him the wrong way. Barnaby and Nathan were too occupied with accessing the justice bureau’s database to notice him pouting, in the meantime, so he indulged for a moment or two.

Before he could strain himself too much in trying to figure out when he’d seen such an honestly average, ordinary looking person in a situation where he might have committed the man to memory, Kotetsu caught the faint sound of Saito’s voice and turned to hear the words better.

“Ah, what? Can you say that again?”

“You called me several times, didn’t you?” whispered Saito again, slightly more urgently.

Glad of the distraction, Kotetsu nodded quickly. The lack of response had somewhat disturbed him at the time, though he’d forgotten about it in the aftermath. It was far easier to worry everyone hated you and wanted you to die when running for one’s life than when one’s life had arguably been saved in the interim. “Yeah, I thought I was going to die! Why didn’t you answer?”

“I also thought I was going to die,” Saito answered ruefully, clutching his cell phone in both hands, white-knuckled. Barnaby and Nathan both glanced up in curiosity at the conversation. “I was trapped in the company elevator while it was stuck for over an hour before you tried to call. Do you know how terrifying that is for someone with claustrophobia?”

The word ‘elevator’ triggered a memory Kotetsu had neatly filed away, and he leapt to his feet, forgetting to show any compassion whatsoever for Saito’s doubtless harrowing hour spent trapped in an elevator car. He resolved to get the little guy a stress ball or something by way of apology later. “That’s it!” Saito’s puzzled expression was mirrored on Barnaby and Nathan’s faces as they looked up from the display on Nathan’s cell phone, so Kotetsu went on. “That’s where I saw that guy—Bunny, he was the tech we noticed during that bomb scare the other week.”

“But if he’s—“ Brow furrowing, Barnaby rose to his feet as well, forgetting Nathan’s plan to access the criminal database. “Then the producer is in danger, isn’t she?”

“What?” Nathan looked between them, still not following. “What’s the producer got to do with any of it?”

“That guy—he may have come after me to take me out, since I saw his face during the bombing thing.” That made the most sense as far as Kotetsu was concerned, though he saw a look of suspicion cross Nathan’s face. What else could it possibly be? As he’d been agonizing over before, he couldn’t think of a single person with a good reason to come after him like this. The bomb scare actually provided a motive, and Kotetsu was relieved to have it. “Anyway, if he’s trying to kill everyone who saw him then, then Miss Agnes and the cameraman are in danger, too.”

Glancing over his shoulder as he stepped into the armor storage room of the van, Barnaby smiled wryly. “Do you want to drive this time, old man, or should I?”

“I’m still sore from earlier,” Kotetsu grumbled, following him into the room and adroitly setting about the process of changing into his undersuit from civilian clothes, hesitating when he was done to be sure he’d set all his personal effects aside. He left on his wedding band, tugged on his gloves, and began to suit up in earnest, catching a glimpse of Barnaby doing the same when he turned to search out his helmet. “You can take the helm, right?”

For a long moment, Barnaby did not answer, frowning down at his gauntleted hands as if he did not trust them to see him through the night. When he finally seemed content that he could make it, he only nodded, leading the way from the van to their motorcycles parked outside in tense silence. Nathan followed, long since changed into his own suit, and hopped into the sidecar beside Kotetsu with entirely more fondling than Kotetsu had been prepared for. Any reassuring words he’d been thinking of saying died on his lips as they jumped from a dead stop into third gear and lit through the city, engine growling.

Barnaby drove like a thing possessed, but Kotetsu kept the thought to himself. It was someone’s life on the line. If ever urgency had been needed, now was definitely the time.


	3. Chapter 3

“What?” Barnaby looked completely floored, which wasn’t precisely the reaction Kotetsu had been hoping for, but was still several leagues better than a condescending smile or a flat out denial as he’d feared. They were seconds from stepping into the communal showers, which might not have been the best time to ask, but Kotetsu couldn’t think of a more natural way to invite someone to a social gathering than when already speaking to them. “You can’t be serious.”

Kotetsu waved it off and shucked his undersuit, stepping into the showers without a further thought to it. “I don’t see why not,” He called back, trying to keep his tone even in the face of Barnaby’s strange dismissal. Given the night they’d had, Kotetsu wasn’t in the best of moods either. What seemed especially odd to him was his own reaction to Barnaby’s answer; a sort of feeling of ‘maybe I shouldn’t go, either, then’, as if he wouldn’t be glad to spend time with Nathan and Antonio, glad to be reminded at a time like this that there were still people out there who understood how he felt about the importance of life. How childishly he wanted to guard it. Forcing a little cheer into his voice, he added as teasingly as possible, “After all, you were the one who suggested it.”

A strange look passed over Barnaby’s face as he joined Kotetsu in the showers, curiously unguarded in his expressions without his glasses on. It was odd, seeing him so vulnerable. Abruptly aware that such emotional openness might actually be something Barnaby preferred to keep personal, Kotetsu redirected his attention to himself and getting thoroughly clean.

That did not stop him from hearing, however, Barnaby’s puzzled query:

“I did?”

“Yeah, you did.” Kotetsu poured a dollop of shampoo into his palm and began lathering up his grimy, sweat-soaked hair. He tried to think about the mint smell of the stuff, instead of the fires that had burned around him while he sweated and worked with charbroiled human bodies and choking, terrified criminals, trying to save lives beyond his ability to even end painlessly. It worked a little better, once the smoke smell started to wash off of his skin, but not very well. He cleared his throat. “I mean, I know it’s not a joyous occasion or anything, but you did say it’d be more normal to ask you out for drinks.”

From the shower spray somewhere to his right, Barnaby agreed quietly, “Ah. So I did.”

“We could all use a little support after what happened,” he began to work his fingers into his scalp, trying to get every last particle of smoke out of his hair before he rinsed the suds from it. Too many nights in Kotetsu’s life had been spent sleepless, smelling the sulfur of a gas explosion he had failed to prevent, or the smoke of a fire that had claimed victims he should have saved. He knew by now that it was better to force himself through a scalding shower or two than to lie awake, remembering the faces of the dying whenever he took a breath. “Nathan and Antonio will be there. You’d be welcome with us.” He thought desperately that he’d better shut up, now, before he started to regret talking or, worse, alienated Barnaby even further, somehow. Lost in his thoughts like this, Kotetsu had even less social charm than usual, no doubt. He finished quietly, “I just thought you might like the company. ”

Making a non-committal sound, Barnaby kept largely silent, and for the next twenty minutes Kotetsu did the same, focusing on the involved process of scrubbing himself clean from head to toe and letting the heat of the water beat his tension out of him. He felt far too tired to be going out when he’d finished but curiously awake at the same time. Trying to cling to that awareness instead of giving in to the urge to yawn, Kotetsu redressed in something of a daze, pleasantly numb to the world around him until a cool-fingered hand touched his right wrist.

Jumping in surprise, Kotetsu glanced wildly over his shoulder. Seeing that it was only Barnaby, he let out a sigh of relief. “Oh! Sorry. I spaced out for a moment, there.”

“Try ‘the entire shower’.” Eyeing Kotetsu as if he’d spent several minutes trying to get through that meditative calm and was now quite certain something was wrong, Barnaby toweled off his hair and, still only clad in his cargo pants and bright red boots, headed for the exit to the bathroom. “I was saying, I’ll have to take a rain check on your invitation. I’m just—“ and he seemed to hesitate, frowning when Kotetsu’s face fell. “I’m not feeling up to it tonight.”

Kotetsu thought he could see the earnest words, _you understand, don’t you?_ written in Barnaby’s expression, and nodded because—really—he did. He managed a small smile, and clapped a hand to Barnaby’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Bunny. You’re welcome any time you want to have drinks with us. Rest up, okay?”

“I’ll do that.” Wrapping his towel about his bare shoulders, Barnaby returned Kotetsu’s smile with one of his own. “See you tomorrow, old man.”

“Yeah,” Kotetsu called after him, waving. “Tomorrow.”

He took a deep breath, holding it for several seconds, and tried to plan out his night with some sense to how he would be getting home, after he’d drunken himself into a stupor with Antonio and Nathan around for company. Nathan would drive, doubtless, and often had for them in the past, but did he really have any right to bank on that? It seemed selfish. In retrospect, he was embarrassed just knowing he’d done it before, let alone that he was even considering doing it now.

But if he didn’t have enough to make himself too drunk to drive, then he wouldn’t really be accomplishing much by going out for drinks. The companionship of being with other people wouldn’t mean much if he spent the whole night in a crowded bar, thinking about how Barnaby was probably sitting at home alone, dealing with whatever _he_ felt about this whole thing with Lunatic, and—

Oh. _Oh._ Kotetsu cursed himself for being so oblivious, dragged a comb through his hair so sharply it made his scalp sting and tossed on his cap. If he hurried, he might still be able to catch up to Barnaby before he left. Driven by that thought, Kotetsu dashed out of the bathroom and into the gym, rushing down the stairs as soon as he saw that the lights were already off for the night. It was late, wasn’t it? He hadn’t even thought about it, but it was. As he dashed outside he fought with his teeth and their desire to chatter in response to the frigid late-winter cold. Of course Barnaby would reject a request to meet in a crowded bar; hadn’t Kotetsu noted privately on more than one occasion that Barnaby was terrible in crowded spaces?

“What the hell kind of partner am I?” Kotetsu grumbled under his breath, dashing through the double-doors at the foot of the building out in the direction of the parking lot. There was a dull roar echoing down within it, and he managed to catch up just in time to flag Barnaby down, waving desperately and then hugging himself against the chill in the air.

It was a small thing, maybe inconsequential, but Kotetsu found himself smiling a little when Barnaby stopped, sitting back in his motorcycle and looking at Kotetsu in puzzlement. “What is it, old man?”

“I just—hell. I wanted to apologize,” he began lamely, unsure how to put it and wincing at his own lack of eloquence. “I know you don’t really like big crowds but I was inviting you along to something like that anyway. It was just—inconsiderate of me, you know?”

The tense, battle-ready stance Barnaby had been adopting faded into something a little easier, and he shook his head. “To be honest, I’m surprised you’d even noticed.” Was he imagining that Barnaby seemed uneasy? “I thought I was doing a pretty good job of fitting in.”

“No- no! that’s not what I meant at all, no, no,” Kotetsu laughed, glancing up at the sky, then shrugging, feeling incredibly awkward. “Besides, it’s okay not to like crowded places. They’re loud and tend to smell awful. You’re perfectly normal for not liking it. I just wanted to say if you’d _like_ company, I can tell Nathan and Antonio I’ll catch up later and we can go back to my place for a couple of drinks, if you want.” Seeing Barnaby’s skeptically raised eyebrow, Kotetsu added hastily, “Or your place! I’m just not gonna assume you want people over when I’m the one making the invitation. I know a little about manners.”

At that, Barnaby actually chuckled, though not meanly.

“I only said ‘a little’,” Kotetsu retorted, feeling some strange tightness in his chest ease. “Hey, so what about it? You want to hang out tonight? I just don’t think anybody should have to spend the night alone after seeing what we saw today.” And that, when it came right down to it, was the honest truth, maybe even a little more than Kotetsu had meant to say out loud. He tried not to read too much into it.

For his part, Barnaby seemed curiously moved. “I’m not going to drink with you, old man, but we can go back to your place so you can get as wasted as you like. Sound fair?”

Too surprised at the concept of refusing to drink _at all_ to think about it, Kotetsu whined “Why not?” and Barnaby rolled his eyes. “No, seriously, I’m shit at cooking but I’m great mixing drinks. I can make anything you like, just try me!”

With a secretive smile that said he knew Kotetsu could not possibly win that bet, Barnaby shook his head. “Just come on already. I think I know where your house is, but I need to pick something up on the way there.” Not one to complain when he was handed something he wanted without having to pay an arm and leg to get it, Kotetsu dashed into the parking garage, fetched his own motorcycle, and clicked the button to transform it into a sidecar, clipping it onto Barnaby’s and slipping inside with a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have admitted it aloud, but Kotetsu hated driving at night and was glad of any excuse to avoid having to do so if he could take it.

It took less than ten minutes to arrive at Barnaby’s apartment, and Kotetsu followed him up, unwilling to lounge in the parking lot for twenty minutes or something while waiting for Barnaby to find his way up to (evidently) the sixty-fifth floor and back. On the way, he called up Antonio to apologize for bailing on their plans to meet up later, and when they reached the door of Barnaby’s apartment, Kotetsu realized that what he’d thought was a comfortable silence was actually nerves on Barnaby’s part.

“Hey, if you want, I can just wait in the hall,” he offered, a little confused by the reaction. “Your personal life is your personal life, and all.”

“No,” Barnaby answered a little too quickly, fumbling with his keys. “No, it’s just weird, having someone over. I never have company.”

When he saw the huge, empty room beyond Barnaby’s door, the stark cleanliness of it, the absolute lack of furnishings for more than a single person living life like a prisoner, Kotetsu could easily believe that Barnaby not only never had company, but never wanted that to change. While he stared out the magnificent bay windows at the starscape of Stern Bild below, he managed to forget for a few moments why they were even planning to spend the night in each other’s company at all. All he could think, seeing this place, was that Barnaby must be the single loneliest person Kotetsu had ever met. And wasn’t that sad? What if he never made friends?

Barnaby had disappeared down a hallway but peeked back out of what Kotetsu assumed must be his bathroom with a nervous frown. “You can come inside, old man, don’t linger like that. You’re making me edgy.”

Stammering an apology, Kotetsu hastily stepped through the threshold, pulling the door shut behind him and taking a second, slightly less awestruck survey of the apartment. He looked long enough to determine that Barnaby did, in fact, own nothing in evidence beyond his fancy designer clothes, a laptop near his single chair, and a tiny robot toy beside the laptop. Or was it a paperweight? Shaking his head, Kotetsu moved to the window and laid one hand against the cool glass, fighting the immediate sense of vertigo. Making himself look out and down at the strange country outlined below them, Kotetsu turned over the events of their evening in his mind. Somewhere down there was the man calling himself Lunatic. He’d set the church that Heroes and police department alike had surrounded aflame, and when Kotetsu had asked Barnaby to pursue the mysterious NEXT he’d gotten no argument. Kotetsu had gotten nothing, really: to him, the night was a hellish memory of failed rescues, but Barnaby hadn’t reported whatever Lunatic had said to him.

Trying to banish the memory of corpses that had smothered into ashes, once they crisped all the way through, he turned back just as Barnaby was stepping into the main room. Barnaby looked somehow more nervous than Kotetsu could remember having seen him in the past. Regretting his insistence on coming, Kotetsu opened his mouth to apologize. To his surprise, Barnaby beat him to it, saying quickly, “I’ve got wine, if you’d just rather drink here, but not much else. Do you still want to go back to your place?”

Kotetsu shrugged tiredly, crossing the short distance to Barnaby’s single black chair and sinking down into it with a sigh. “What do you want to do, Bunny?”

No answer, as Barnaby’s footsteps approached and he leaned on the back of the chair, looking out at the night sky just as Kotetsu was doing. “I think-“ Barnaby fussed a little with a black ring Kotetsu hadn’t noticed him wearing before. “I guess I want to talk. If you’re interested in just talking.”

“We have a lot we could talk about,” Kotetsu agreed amicably, wriggling deeper into the chair. “I can sit on the floor if you want, but I was going to be good and not go raid your wine cabinet without you asking, first.”

“No, stay there.” Stepping away, Barnaby seemed oddly out of sorts, his movements slow and groggy in a way with which Kotetsu was unfamiliar. “I’ll get us a couple of glasses and a bottle of wine.”

Agreeing through tacit silence, Kotetsu waited, wondering what Barnaby had learned in his confrontation with Lunatic, whether he would willingly tell Kotetsu or only reveal the information if it became necessary for the other Heroes to know at some point. He’d had bad experiences with talkative criminals before. Hopefully whoever this guy was, he hadn’t found any sore points; not that it was any secret that Barnaby’s parents had been murdered, which had to be sore enough to be a liability.

What was remarkable, Kotetsu thought drowsily, about Barnaby was how very calm he was almost all of the time. Even in stressful situations, Kotetsu’d only ever seen his partner lose his temper a little, and only really late at night. Hell, maybe Barnaby just kept a conscientious sleep schedule.

The subject of his thoughts returned just as he was debating the merits of asking Barnaby what his secret was, and so as Barnaby was setting the wine bottle down on the small table beside Kotetsu, arranging the two glasses he’d fetched and picking up both laptop and tiny robot to move aside someplace safe, Kotetsu blurted it out, deadly curious. “How do you stay so level-headed all the time? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Beg your pardon?” Barnaby answered, looking up guiltily, as if he’d been caught in some truancy. “How do you mean, old man?”

“You know,” Kotetsu gestured impotently with one hand, trying to think of specific examples he could reference to get his point across. “Even tonight, you’re so calm. Everyone else is a mess except you. It’s almost inhuman, I don’t know how you do it.” Smiling weakly, he tried to take some of the unintentional bite off of the statement, adding, “I’m kinda jealous! Seems like it’d be a handy skill.”

Swallowing thickly, Barnaby didn’t answer for a very long moment. He left the room, setting his laptop and tiny toy off somewhere safely out of sight, and returned barefoot, his feet making soft sounds in the carpet. He did not meet Kotetsu’s eyes as he poured himself a glass of wine, sat down beside Kotetsu’s chair, and began to sip it.

A cold chill ran up and down Kotetsu’s spine as he found himself watching closely, noting the exact manner in which Barnaby licked his lips clean of the wine once he’d had his first sip.

And then, very quietly, Barnaby admitted with a slight duck of his head, “I’m on medication for that. Mood stabilizers.” Frowning, he pressed the fluted tip of the glass to his lips again, then seemed to think better of it and smirked forlornly at the glass, lifting it high. “I wasn’t going to drink with you, because alcohol tends to make them react weirdly with my body chemistry.”

“Weirdly?”

“Well, for me, it usually brings on an episode of depression.” Staring dully at the faint pink wine in his cup, Barnaby sighed. “Then I thought, maybe it would be better if I _was_ depressed tonight. It’s strange, not to feel like everyone else does. People will notice and wonder—“ Green eyes narrowing, Barnaby shrugged the rest of whatever he’d been about to say off, and took another sip from his glass.

Sitting up a little straighter, Kotetsu leaned over and poured himself a glass of wine as well, drinking it with considerably less grace and more aplomb than his partner. He didn’t let himself feel an ounce of chagrin for it, either, using the seconds it took him to slake his thirst and steel his nerves to search for the right words to say. “So I guess you have—what, social anxiety, then? That’s why you don’t like being out much?”

Barnaby made a face and half-shook his head, which wasn’t really an answer exactly.

“Not quite? I mean, I’m not lying at all, even if you just think I’m trying to be nice, but you seemed perfectly normal to me, Bunny.” Meeting Barnaby’s suspicious, skeptical frown with a serious nod, Kotetsu offered his glass in a toast. “You’re way too damn nice, I guess, but that doesn’t scream ‘needs to be medicated’ to me.”

Clinking their glasses together with a silent laugh, Barnaby drank deeply, draining his glass as if he’d made the decision, right then, to get drunk and damn the consequences. “I’m—it’s—well, it’s stupid. When my parents were murdered, I saw it happen,” he said, very quietly, so quietly that Kotetsu held his breath. The courage-drink made sense, now. “And the pressure, or something about it, I don’t know. I get hallucinations, sometimes; I thought I was being chased by these men in suits, with this mark on their hands, for weeks after the murder.”

Swallowing again, Barnaby sighed, starting to rise to grab the bottle before Kotetsu passed it to him in solemn silence.

“I’m not crazy,” he added, a little defensively.

Kotetsu laughed. “I know you’re not.” Sensing that Barnaby did not believe him in the slightest, he reached out with his free hand and squeezed Barnaby’s shoulder. “Doesn’t mean any kid should ever have to see something like what you did, though. But I take it the men with the mark—they weren’t real?”

“No proof of them, anyway,” Barnaby agreed, leaning into Kotetsu’s touch and against the chair with a faraway expression. He poured himself another glass so full it was threatening to spill. “Don’t tell my doctor I’m drinking, by the way. Unless you want me to never drink with you again,” Barnaby added thoughtfully, sipping the excess away and handing the bottle back.

“Just tonight, we’ll make an exception,” Kotetsu promised.

“In any case,” Barnaby went on, as though he’d not interrupted himself twice over. “I was hospitalized, and eventually after a few false alarms, the doctors diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. I’ve been on medication since then, more or less.” Sipping his wine again, he glanced up at Kotetsu and they both held still, staring a moment before each looked away, unsure of himself.

It didn’t change a thing, really, from Kotetsu’s perspective. At the very least, it didn’t change his own feelings towards his partner, which were generally warm. But he got the definite impression that Barnaby felt that they would have to treat each other differently now, and wanted to nip that misconception in the bud. “I’m sorry things were so rough for you as a kid,” he offered, swirling the wine in his glass and watching it move, thoughtfully. “Things are better now, though, right?”

Barnaby pressed his cheek to Kotetsu’s thigh, and the world seemed to _stop._

Worse, Barnaby didn’t realize what he was doing at all. Kotetsu held stock still in a mix of terror and some horrible desire that was absolutely unacceptable to feel just because no one ever touched his thigh these days. Especially when his partner was drunk. And emotionally vulnerable. And Kotetsu was quite possibly working on getting to the same spot himself. Anyway, they’d have hated themselves in the morning, it was simply never to be.

“For the most part,” Barnaby answered languidly, startling Kotetsu guiltily from his reverie and fantasies about Barnaby touching more than just his thigh. “Especially now.”

“Now?” He answered, mouth dry. “Why?”

“Because,” and from the tone of Barnaby’s voice, Kotetsu was being exceptionally dense, but he couldn’t imagine what made now special in relation to the rest of Barnaby’s life. To some degree he was panicking about the importance of removing Barnaby’s head from his leg as soon as possible, lest he give mixed signals or seem to be taking advantage of Barnaby’s evident exhaustion. He was glad of the distraction, though; even if all this might be an uncomfortable topic for Barnaby, Kotetsu’s mind was far from the dark place he’d worried it would be tonight.

He tried to coax a real answer out of Barnaby, growing curious. “Because...?”

“Because I’m a Hero, now,” Barnaby said in a tone that sang with childlike wonder Kotetsu knew all too well, considering he felt it any time he got excited about Hero TV, too. It had been a continual source of excitement for him to discover just how much they had in common, actually, though their similar views on the importance of protecting people from harm was a favorite point of Kotetsu’s. “I’ve wanted to be a Hero for a long, long time. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it.”

That sentiment was one Kotetsu didn’t doubt all the Heroes shared, though some were more serious about being a Hero than others. Hearing Barnaby say it, though, he could imagine there’d been challenges along the way that only Barnaby had had to face. For one thing, there was getting appointed by the Justice Bureau at all, with his medical history. Laying his free hand atop Barnaby’s head and ruffling his hair, Kotetsu took a deep gulp of his wine and grinned. “I’m not surprised you made it. You’re great at it.”

“Well,” Barnaby murmured, sounding sleepier than he did drunk. “I’ve got an excellent role model to learn from.”

Smiling ruefully down at the body curled up beside him, Kotetsu asked, “You’re not going to regret letting me stay the night in the morning, are you?”

His answer, a half-conscious mumble, prompted him to get up and drag Barnaby through the apartment until he could find a bed to lay his partner out upon. No amount of being manhandled and thrown onto soft, excessively large beds seemed to stir Barnaby from his stupor, and Kotetsu wondered if it had something to do with the medications. Worrying that it might’ve had something to do instead with the combination of the alcohol Barnaby’d managed to consume before he fell asleep and said medications, Kotetsu made a point of checking his partner’s pulse before he retreated to the living room and let himself fall asleep in that solitary chair.

He told himself it was to be sure Barnaby was all right, but part of him couldn’t help wondering if it’d been an excuse to keep touching that gentle face and his impossibly soft hair. The concern that his motivations had, in fact, been sinister kept him up until the sun was about to rise and the sky gone gray in anticipation. Exhausted, he gave up his attempts to self-flagellate as a lost cause best picked up later on in the day.


End file.
